to change or not to change...

Is it just me or does anyone else find that changing is hard? I’ve been trying really hard this summer to work on various things that I would like to change in my life…behaviours, patterns, hair styles…all of which have happened to no avail. Well, I say that but who knows…six months from now I may catch myself doing something and think “geez…that’s different, when did I start responding that way?” I’ve always thought of change as something that happens to me…instead of a process that tends to occur over time, often without us even noticing.

I’ve been finding the struggle to change rather interesting though because as a whole, change is one of the few things that we can really count on in life. It happens time and time again, whether we want it to or not. In turn, we find ourselves adapting to it time and time again (also, whether we want to or not!!) so, it leads me to believe that the act of change should come rather naturally to us, shouldn’t it? Or do we perhaps resist it because of the very reason that it already happens so often outside of our control?

As usual, I don’t have the answers to any of these questions but, I do know that it’s almost embarrassing to admit how many times I’ve tried to change my ways, only to find myself months later in the same trap that I’ve aimlessly been trying to free myself from. And I can’t quite figure out why. It’s not for lack of commitment or ambition. It’s not for lack of determination or vision. I’ve proven in more ways than one that all of these qualities are ingrained in the very essence of the person that I am. So I find myself puzzled!

I did however find comfort as of late in the Book of Romans, Verse 7:15…

“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

It appears that even two thousand years ago, people were struggling with the same desire to be the very best version of them selves and yet, found their “usual ways” to be more overbearing than our ability to resist temptation.

I don’t know whether to feel encouraged or sad at this reality. For all of our coping mechanisms, change doesn’t seem to be one of those things that instinctively kicks-in when needed most. For all of the ways that we’ve evolved over the centuries, I’m stunned to find that there are certain things that never do change in the end. Our desire for chocolate and pretty shoes being one of them!

I guess what they say is true after all…the more things change, the more they stay the same!

let the voting begin...

Over the past couple of years, Steve and I have developed a new appreciation for the likes of stand-up comedy. I mean, really…what better way is there to spend an evening than laughing?!?! For two or three years now, we’ve been watching the reality show Last Comic Standing. The plot’s pretty basic; A bunch of comics go up…do their routine…people vote and the funniest moves on until (you got it)…there is one last comic standing!!!

Steve and I are not ones for reality television at all but, thanks to this show, we’ve found ourselves in stitches at least once a week due to some brilliant comic that we’re seeing for the first time! In turn though, we’ve also made it to the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and are developing or list of must-see comics for the near future.

Tonight is the finale for this season’s show and let me just say that there has been a great round of laughs this time around! They shortened the season this year (I imagine due to the Olympics starting tomorrow) so each night it’s been two hours instead of one and we’ve religiously parked ourselves in front of the television in order to get our ab workout for the day!

Going into tonight’s finale…I have two favourites! Both are hysterical, both are worthy of winning and I’m sure that both will go on to be very successful regardless of tonight’s outcome. Us Canadians are apparently not allowed to vote (even though we had a Canadian comic in the running up until last week) but, if I had to pick just one…my vote would go to Jeff Dye, the twenty five year old from Seattle. Now, I’m not just saying this because he is beautiful (Which he is! Girls…I’m sure you’d wholeheartedly agree and wonder where he’s been all your life!!!!), I’m saying it because I think he genuinely deserves it. Oh man…is he ever funny! Steve and I found ourselves in tears last week watching his set and anyone who can make me laugh that hard about being eight years old gets my vote.

Please…watch it! And ladies…enjoy the moment ;)

a question or two...

I watched one of my favourite movies this past weekend…You’ve Got Mail. It’s not my favourite because of the acting or the intricate plot line or even for its creativity. In fact, I just like it for its simplicity. Like a good friend, it’s just easy to be in a room with!

The first time I saw it was purely by accident. It happened to be playing on tv on night and I had it on in the background as I went about doing other things. Pretty soon though, I found myself distracted enough to finally sit down and watch what was left of it. I’ll be the first to admit…it’s a corny little romantic movie that would likely never happen in real life but, who’s to say that the world couldn’t use a bit more of that?!?!

I think, more than anything, I just loved the setting of the movie. It takes place in New York (I love New York!), mostly in the fall (I love the Fall!) and usually in one of two place; either in front of their laptops (I love my laptop!) or in their bookstores (I love bookstores!) with a never ending soundtrack of jazz (I love jazz!) playing in the background…so really, I suppose what I’m getting at is that I wish it were me in that movie frolicking through the leaves at Thanksgiving along Fifth Avenue, laptop in hand on my way to a bookstore!!

There’s one part in the movie when Meg Ryan’s character begins to wonder about her life and what lead her to where she is. She says “so much of what I see reminds me of something that I once read in a book, when shouldn’t it the other way around?” As I browse through Facebook and see where so many of my high school acquaintances have ended up (in rather lavish and exotic lifestyles)…I often wonder the same thing. Have we ended up here because we wanted to or because we weren’t brave? Like anything else, life is what you make of it but, it appears that some of us have an easier time throwing ourselves off the ledge of uncertainty than others.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in the big leather chair next to our fireplace, with a blanket and Tugger curled up on my lap while I started a new book. As I looked out at the dark clouds rolling in, I thought to myself that I couldn’t really imagine wanting to be anywhere else but here. Of course, I know that there are people who would cringe at the very thought of our semi-suburban life that we’ve begun to create but, it’s safe and it’s friendly and it leaves room for growth and inspiration. Of course, there is restlessness of a different nature too; the restlessness that has far less to do with where you are and more to do with what are you. I’m quite certain that is the monster that I wrestle with more often than not.

At one point in time, Ryan’s character is struggling with trying to keep her little bookstore, which has come to be her purpose and livelihood, alive. Every time I see it, I get little pains of sympathy as I always seem to find myself on the other end of the spectrum; trying to bring life to my writing instead of trying to prevent its heart from stopping. While she’s mourning the potential death of something she once loved, I’m still trying to give birth to something that I have yet to create.

I often catch myself wondering who really reads this and if it ever means something. I wonder if it will ever amount to anything other than one more occupied corner of cyberspace or one more outlet where words get taken for granted. Today is one of those days!

All this while still trying to have a good hair day and find time to stop for coffee!

Simply maddening!

never argue with a woman...

One morning a husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book.

Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Goodmorning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, "isn't that obvious?")

"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"For reading a book?" she replies.

"You're in a restricted fishing area" he informs her again.

"I'm sorry officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault" says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you" says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment." "Have a nice day ma'am!" And he left.

The moral of the story: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

Simon's Cat...

This must be where Tugger learned it from!!!

Someone take away this man's pencil...my feline is trouble enough without his tutorials!!!

Wow…I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s the kind of catching up that requires me to just sit down and carve out the time that I need to get life organized again. For any of you who have been reading the papers lately, you know that my work days of late have been somewhat tumultuous (on that note, thank you to everyone who has been emailing to check in. I have very much appreciated knowing that you were thinking of me). Given the circumstances, I’m not really in a position to offer my opinion about it just yet (at least not in writing!) but, needless to say that it has left my mind feeling rather exhausted. Each day has provided its own challenges and to witness the degree to which people will go out of their way to hurt each other has really made me ache. It’s been a very upsetting way to learn that there really is no price that you can put on your reputation and dignity.

All of this to say that I am patiently waiting with baited breath for some down time in which my brain and my body can work cohesively together in order to start plucking away at my to-do list. If you’ve emailed me lately and haven’t heard back…then rest assured that you are on that list!!!

First things first though…a rest! I need a little rest! Steve’s actually been out camping with Colin so, for the first time, I have the house (and Tugger!) to myself. So tonight I plan on going home, putting on my comfy clothes, and watching too many hours of sitcoms (thanks to Steve’s fancy new television, it’s actually like having company over because everyone is life-sized!)! Then maybe I’ll have a bath, a glass of wine and early to bed. This girl needs some beauty sleep like nobody’s business!

As Steve gets home tomorrow night (hopefully all in one piece), it will also be the start of our much needed August long weekend! The timing couldn’t be better!! We’re heading to Kingston to spend some time cruising through the thousand islands with Heather and Roberta, and I have a coffee date with some of my girls on Monday but otherwise, we intend to do nothing but play and rest all weekend long! It will probably rain all weekend (just like it has for the entire rest of the summer thus far) but at this point, it could even snow and I wouldn’t care…I just want to unplug my brain and have a change of scenery.

After that…it’s on to the to-do list!

Wish me luck…I feel like I’m going to need it!

p.s. thank you cartoonist from the Globen and Mail for making us laugh (even if you are making fun of us!!)...given the week we've had, it's long overdue!

Carrie Bradshaw...You're So Wise!!

"Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." ~ Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City (final episode)

Rebuilding...

Okay, so I know that I haven’t written much in the last ten days or so. I read somewhere that when people get writer’s block, it’s because they are lacking passion. I certainly hope that is not true. In my case, I’ve just been contemplating change a lot lately and for me, change has to be a solitary thing absent even of the written word.

I don’t cope well with change. I am a creature of habit and while I don’t necessarily resist change, I certainly approach it with a bit of apprehension. Even when I know that the change is a good thing, as the age old saying goes...I have a tendency to choose the devil that I know versus the devil that I don’t know.

This past week involved some change with one of my closest friends and in doing so, all of my fear and anxiety regarding change came flooding to the surface once again. I’ve been very blessed to have some extraordinary friends in my life and in turn, I’ve come to realize that usually the best of friendships have to endure a period of tribulation and the real test of longevity is always found on the other side. In many cases even, you never fully understand the depths of your friendship (or how much you love them) until it’s been put through the ringer and left hung out to dry. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been better able to respond through the eyes of compassion and a shared desire to endure versus my usual reaction of emotional fear (which seldom gets me anywhere but into trouble!). Nonetheless, maturity gained or not…my quickness of breath never fails to follow me every where I go in patient anticipation of the long sought after “normalcy” that was once taken for granted.

As I spent the weekend thinking about this, Steve and I attended the very last service held at the Metropolitan Bible Church (aka. the Met). Since Steve and I are considered a “mixed marriage” (two different Christian denominations marrying each other), we’ve made a very big effort to attend services that reflect both of our religions. We tend to alternate between the Met and Blessed Sacrament Church but lately, we’ve found ourselves at the Met a little bit more often than usual.

The Met was built nearly 76 years ago in the depths of the Depression when a group of a hundred Christians got together and decided that while they may be poor, they were still rich in love with Christ and needed a place to celebrate. Now, three quarters of a century later, the Church has been renovated and expanded multiple times and has five different services every Sunday (two of them held off site at Carleton University). Now, due to the ever increasing needs of this ever expanding congregation and watching the ceiling fall down more than once, a new building has been built and the Christian community is moving to its new home next weekend. A beautiful new place to worship on acres of green space with many new and much needed facilities will house a new generation of believers and begin a new legacy.

This kind of change though, doesn’t come without its own sense of apprehension. We tend to get so used to the way things are that it’s often very difficult to let go and embrace the possibility of how things could be. We become afraid, vulnerable and reluctant to let go of what we’ve known for so long, even if it does mean opening ourselves up to better and bigger opportunities. Most of the service last night was spent passing a microphone around and giving members the opportunity to reflect on their favourite memory of the Met. One gentleman began going there when he was three years old with his grandmother. He was baptized there, he was married there, he said goodbye to his wife there and now he will have to watch condominiums be built there…as will we all. But Pastor Reid tried to ease our anxious minds by reassuring us that no part of what we love will be left behind. He quoted Hebrews 13:8 stating that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” in order to remind us that Christ will be the same in our new sanctuary as he was in the old.

As I walked out of the doors for the last time and ran my fingers along the bricks, I thought of our old Church, my dearest friend and the changes that we are enduring together. I thought about how much I’ve loved singing in the sanctuary and how much love hearing from my friend every day. I thought about how much comfort I’ve found among its walls and how much comfort I’ve found in my friend’s words. I thought about how grateful I was for having such a place to worship and how grateful I was for sharing in my friend’s life. And for the first time, I thought about how much I would miss this building and how much I would miss my friend if I wasn’t willing to endure the change…both of these experiences have been incredible gifts from God.

Yes, it’s always hard to adjust to a different framework and the growing pains of new surroundings but, at the same time, it’s even harder to enjoy any relationship, with God or with loved ones, when the ceiling is crumbling down around you. So, instead, you endure the agony and hard work of putting back together the broken parts of your foundation and finding yourselves a new place to reside…a place with a bit more room to grow. Often times, change is just that, growth; we just grow out of our broke down churches and our new friendships, and if we’re really lucky, we move forward with courage into the more mature and better suited versions of what we’re leaving behind.

Sometimes our faith and love, for our sanctuaries, our friends, our God, is just so grand that you need a bigger roof and stronger walls to protect everything you’ve worked so hard for.

Because God knows that there is absolutely no way that I’m willing to let it sit out in the rain and get ruined.

Christian the Lion...

Oh my goodness…do not watch this if you are feeling emotional in any way or you will find yourself weeping in front of your computer screen in about sixty seconds!!

For all of us animal lovers especially…This is incredibly touching.

John Mayer...You Say It Best...

Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all your so called problems
Better put 'em in quotations

Say what you need to say

Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead

If you could only
Say what you need to say

Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much
Then never to say what you need to say again

Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open...

And say what you need to say

A Letter To My Younger Self...

Dear Little Miss Genevieve,

You’re ten years old today! It’s a good thing too because you drove our mother crazy in anticipation of finally reaching those infamous “double digits”!! I guess no one really calls you Genevieve right now, do they? Most people call you Genny or some variation of well-earned nicknames! I don’t know if Mom has told you this yet but she said that she and Dad named us Genevieve Victoria so that when we became famous, we would never have to change our name! Sweet, isn’t it? So promise me that any time you ever feel a little under the weather, you will remember that long before we were even born, a couple of people had some really big hopes for us. I know that right now, you find it hard to live a life with the name Genevieve as it just seems so grown up and sophisticated but I promise you that eventually, you will grow into it and in some ways, you might even think it suits you. It goes with well with your long legs!!

As you turn ten and I turn thirty, I wish that I had some really great words of wisdom for you. As it turns out though, I seem to be learning just as much now as I did when I was your age…sometimes, it’s even the same lessons over and over again (no, we don’t appear to grow out of our stubbornness just yet!). I’m finding that advice, much like happiness, is something that we seem to reflect on in retrospect. At some point in time, we look back and say to ourselves “yeah…that was worth writing down” but, with youth comes the inability to see that life will and does go on, whether we make the same mistakes or not.

About five or six years from now, your going to find yourself curled up in a ball on your bed, crying your eyes out because you’ve had your heart broken for the very first time. You’ll soon come to learn that you are a person that loves so deeply with every fiber of your being. This means that you also grieve, hurt and feel that loss with the same degree of passion. While you’re curled up in your moment of misery, Mom is going to reassure you that, one of these days, you’re going to meet someone that will more than make up for all the love that you put out into the world that never seemed to come back. Though it will seem like little consolation at the time, believe her…she is right. Paul McCartney’s words will follow you through more tears than you ever thought possible…“in the end, the love that we take is equal to the love that we make”.

As I say this though, I want you to know that dealing with men in the earlier part of your life will come as the most unique example of trial and error that you’ll ever experience. I’ll be the first to admit that men are still a complete mystery to me but one thing that I do know is that for all of their differences, men bring so much feeling into life. They are handsome and funny and protective. They smell good, they have the most adorable smiles on their faces when they are happy to see you and they will, with utmost certainty, flip your world upside down!

Two men in particular though, will make your heart break so much that you’ll feel like it might never beat again. While you endure the agony of humanity’s cruelest test of patience, to have loved and lost, you will find comfort in knowing that you are, indeed, still breathing. Much to your surprise, you’ll come out on the other side anchored by an even stronger ability to stand on your own. Somehow, despite the pain, you do find that a broken heart still beats just the same. You will discover though that friendship with someone that you’ve once ached over can be equally agonizing. Something about the way you once looked at each other never really goes away. The sound of their voice, the way they reach out to grab your hand in a crowd, the first sight of them after too many days apart…they just leave an indelible mark that is not easily erased. Eventually though, you come to realize that maybe you don’t want them to be erased from your life. Instead, maybe it’s okay for them to be the incomplete chapters of your life…the blank pages at the end of your book. After all, they were fantastic kissers!

One day though, at the most unexpected moment, the most handsome of all men will come along and promise to hold your heart in the palm of his hand so he can protect it from the ravages of the world. It won’t always be easy but it will always be worthwhile. You will laugh like you’ve never laughed before, you will see the world in the brightest of colours, and you will be healed with him in a way that you could never have been without him. What you will learn about yourself through his eyes will help to you grow in a way that only comes from such pure and unconditional love. Then, surrounded by (almost) everyone you love, you will stand before God and commit your life to him. The sun will shine brightly the day you wake up to marry the man of your dreams.

I know that right now you don’t know much about God but, in due time, you will find your way back to Him. It will be a painful search at times and you’ll be more lost than you’ve ever been but, He will find you and you’re life will never be the same again. Be prepared to defend your chosen path though because not everyone will share in your serenity. But that’s also part of what makes it so special…that your decisions are slowly starting to become your own. You’ll learn that your choices, like your faith, only require that you believe in them and not anyone else. For all the validation and approval that you seek, through your faith, you’ll realize that your existence, in and of itself, makes you worthy of being loved. I really wish that this was something you could learn sooner but, sometimes, we only open ourselves up to the possibility when there are no other options left. You’ll cry, you’ll fall on your knees and you’ll raise your hands to the heavens but you’ll also be pleasantly surprised to find that the heavens are always more than happy to return the favour!

Relationships will become the foundation of your life and the reality is that relationships can be hard. Humans are unpredictable and the people we love can cause us more tears than we would like to admit but, in the end, they are our reason for being. It will never become easy for you to let go but you need to know that some relationships, regardless of how important they are, need space. Time doesn’t only make the heart grow fonder but it also paves the way for forgiveness, grace and the necessary room to grow. During these times, try to have compassion. It isn’t always the easiest thing to do but, everyone does the very best that they can and more times than not, it’s more than good enough. You are who you are because of the people who loved you. We don’t always make the wisest decisions in the midst of love but, we always do what we think is best, be it right or wrong. To show humility and understanding to another person’s choices takes great maturity and I’m proud to say that it’s a maturity that you’ll develop very soon and will become one of your greatest gifts.

Speaking of gifts…let me assure you that your life will be blessed beyond what you are even capable of imagining right now. Your life will become layer upon layer of every day miracles; the arms that hold you while you sleep, the furry friends that welcome you when you come home, the serenity of the walls that protect you, the shoulders that are constantly there through laughter and through tears, and yes, you will see the Southern Cross with your very own eyes (and it is just as incredible as you always imagined it would be!). The people that you choose to fill your life with will become your pillars of strength, your reflection of yourself and your very proof that God exists. Carry them with you always for they have witnessed your life in immense ways.

Let me tell you something though, young lady…with great gifts comes great responsibility. You will be blessed in ways that some people will spend their entire lives hoping for and in turn, you have been entrusted with considerable duty. As the older and wiser one of the two of us, I feel obliged to tell you that I have great expectations for you and the manner in which you walk through this life. And while it may seem like a lot of work now…I know that you’re up for the challenge; I expect you to always find the light when there is darkness. I expect you to always hold your head high because whether you know it now or not…you are a Child of God. I expect you to be the hands that reach out to help another and I expect compassion from you even when it’s not being offered in return. I expect you to find joy in the simplicities of life (you’ll discover Starbucks in your twenties…that is a great day!) and I expect you to share that joy when others need it most. I expect you to always find forgiveness in your heart…not just for others, but also for your self. I expect you to never give up on another person and to be thankful everyday, even if you’re just thankful that the day is finally over. I expect you to share your last Smarties and to share your heart. I expect you to believe in others even when they don’t believe in themselves and I expect you to never, ever, refuse a good piece of birthday cake!!

Most importantly though, don’t be afraid. You’re so much stronger than you think and twenty years from now…you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Bonne Fête belle petite fille!
xoxo

What Dreams May Come...

I had a dream last night that my teeth were falling out! I’m pretty used to these because for as long as I can remember, I’ve had dreams about my teeth, except that usually, in my dream, a tooth is just loose and the entire dream is spent anticipating when it’s finally going to fall out and me frantically trying to prevent it in the first place.

Last night though, my dream involved all of my teeth crumbling to pieces and every time I went to open my mouth, it was full of my teeth. Needless to say that I was in a wee bit of distress about this (and I think I was on a job interview too…always a good place for losing your teeth!).

So, when I finally woke up this morning, I checked quickly to make sure that all of my teeth were solidly in place, I then proceeded to brush, floss and mouth wash meticulously…then made my way to the computer to google the meaning of my nocturnal occurrence. Sure enough, one of the most common interpretations of such a dream is anxiety towards aging!!!

Not only do I find that completely hysterical but, I also think that means that things aren’t looking too promising for birthdays to come!!!

To Fear or Not To Fear...

During the summer of 2000, I spent thirteen weeks traveling out West. A group of six of us drove from Vancouver to Winnipeg and back on the road trip of a lifetime (with many tears along the way!). Our last three weeks of the summer was spent working at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. Every morning, we would leave our swanky hotel near Robson Avenue in downtown Vancouver and make our way to the PNE grounds via the infamous stretch of Vancouver’s East Side known as Hastings.

For those of you who aren’t entirely familiar with East Hastings, it’s one of the most run-down and dangerous places that you may find in the entire city. East Hastings, at one point in time, was known for having the highest rate of HIV infection in the Western World. Drug addiction, homelessness, prostitution and violent crime are all too familiar in this part of town and for a fairly sheltered girl from South Western Ontario, it was a sight that I had never seen before.

Every day we spent hours stuck in rush hour traffic driving through this alternate world and every day, as I peered through the windows of our SUV, I witnessed people having sex on the street, injecting drugs on the sidewalk and poverty unlike anything I ever want to see again. Oddly enough though, none of the people living in these conditions seemed to care that we were there. Much to my own surprise, I found the fact that our presence went completely unnoticed to really upset me. Somehow, my inability to look at any of these people in the eye (because they never looked at us), made us seem different. And we weren’t really...I knew that. Every day, I felt awful driving through their neighborhood because it felt like they had been put on display. Kind of like the freak show at the local fair, I felt like someone could have been standing on the corner shouting “come one…come all…come see the most apathetic people in the world”. It was heartbreaking.

One day, motivated by my desire for someone, anyone, to care about the desolation that existed in the midst of such wealth, I decided to take the bus home from work. In order to do so, I had to transfer buses three times, which meant that I would have to stand at the corner of pure terror and complete vulnerability until I found my way home (in broad daylight, of course). Sure enough, I made my way and I soaked in every moment of witnessing what felt like another dimension of humanity. The more time I spent walking among them, the more I realized that this could have happened to any one of us. The roads through life do lead in many various directions and one wrong turn could have just as easily brought me here under different circumstances. It’s so easy to see the obvious things that make us different but we all started with the purity of life before the fork in the road came along.

Anyways, as I stood waiting for the last sequence of buses to take me back to the marble floors and crystal chandeliers of my hotel lobby just blocks away (but what seemed like a world away), I overheard two girls sitting on the pavement just next to me. They were leaning up against a shelter wall, smoking cigarettes. Each one couldn’t have been more than ninety pounds and you could easily see the track marks along their inner arms. Their eyes were dark, their cheeks were sunken in and their souls looked tired. The one girl was crying to the other about some guy that she had been with. As she sobbed to her friend, she frustratingly shouted out “WHY DOESN'T HE LOVE ME?”

I couldn’t help but turn around and look at her as the words came out of her mouth. My bus came at that very same moment and it was soon time for me to leave the land of the neglected. While people pushed and shoved their way on to the bus around me…I just stood and looked at her. She eventually looked back at me…straight into my eyes. I gave her a shy smile and eventually turned to walk onto the bus. She didn’t smile back but she knew. She knew what I was trying to say to her...

...That I too, had just asked that very same question the day before and in turn, we quickly realized just how similar we really were. I appeared that regardless of where we were from or how we spent our days, we seemed to share a common trail of thought that consumed our mind...a common rush desire to understand the incomprehensible...a common ache to finally get to the bottom of the million dollar question...BOYS!

Even now, almost a decade later, I can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, she's figured out the answer? Because I know that I certainly haven't!

Canada Day was a blast…as always!
Ottawa really knows how to throw a good party!

For more pictures from Canada Day, click here.

The Art of Negotiating Sleep...

Steve and I rose with the sun this morning having shared a very good night last night. We had such a great night because, low and behold, we got to sleep through the entire night!!

At the risk of sounding too much like “real parents”…we woke up rested, excited and proud because for what is possibly the first time…our little Tugger slept through the night!!! Or, at the very least, he didn’t feel the need to wake us up to share in his nocturnal prowlings!

Ever since we got Tugger, almost two and a half months ago, we’ve found ourselves routinely getting up anywhere between 2am and 6am to kick the little guy out of our room because he either purrs, plays or is just outright stubborn about this cherished time that we so call “sleep”. Even he is pretty used to it by now as he no longer tries to race back into our bedroom before we close the door. Instead, he just gives us this defeated look and walks away as if to say “fine…then I’ll hunt without you…but don’t think for a second that I’m sharing any of my winnings with YOU!”

I think it’s worth mentioning though that even Tugger has developed his own little ground rules regarding our sleeping time; even if we do kick him out…the moment our alarm clock goes off…he patiently sits outside our door and meows pathetically until we let him back in. As far as he’s concerned, this is non-negotiable! We’ve accepted his terms thus far and our system seems to be working quite effectively!

This morning though…I woke up to the alarm and as my eyes opened, I had a brief moment of panic because I realized that I hadn’t gotten up at all to remove our fur ball from the bedroom. I tried frantically to think of where he could be or what could be wrong that kept him from waking us, as per our agreement! Sure enough though, as the split second passed, I looked over to find my purring little guy lying right next to me, curled up by my pillow, one eye peeking open at me and the other is a slight daze of his own! It was heavenly…our kitty let us sleep! They really do grow up so fast!!!

Before we give him too much credit though, here’s the look he gave me on Sunday when I woke him up from his eighteen hour afternoon nap!!!!!

For more pictures of Tugger (not sleeping!), click here.

A Cure for the 21st Century...

Why is it so easy to feel trapped and cornered in this huge world of possibility? As I often sit in my office, I become overwhelmed with this feeling of having taken a wrong turn somewhere and suddenly finding myself in unfamiliar territory. The more lost I get, the more I fear that I can no longer find my way out.

Sometimes I wonder if I was born during the wrong time in history. Women in the 21st century seem to lack so much balance and more so, they seem to consistently pursue further imbalance by taking on more and more that inevitably continues to tip the scale. I often feel like I don’t know how to live in this state of disregard for our well-beings and it frightens me how surrounded I already am by the influence of ambition. I spend all day surrounded by women who scramble relentlessly to climb the corporate ladder and all the while, are watching their marriages, their families and their sanity dissolve before their very eyes.

I long for days of horse-drawn carriages and isolated convents…days of simplicity and mental equilibrium…days when having red hair was the worst of our problems! This place, these walls, this computer screen has chained me to feelings of driving in a fast lane that I accidently merged into, sadly enough though, I don’t exactly feel like I’m in the driver’s seat anymore.

I want out. I want to break free of this crippling feeling of being held captive against my will…held hostage for all to judge and criticize for my lack of desire to work sixty hours a week. I feel like a pack of wolves is keeping watch while the blackberry gets forcefully glued to my hand. How do we end up like this? How do we find our way out?

I find it incredible how so many of us have spent our whole lives going to school in order to live a life pursuing careers. I, myself, never thought to do otherwise. At the age of ten we’re asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, only to find ourselves at the age of twenty, thirty or forty still asking the same question.

When I sit on the front steps of my new house, the world seems vast and full of possibility. I am reminded that I’ve travelled to the corners of the world and read history in the palm of my hands. When I sit here, in my office, I feel like my world is reduced to this time and this place…with no where else to go. Even more tragically is that I overlook a spectacular scene of creation and a miracle that should bring serenity at its very sight. But it doesn’t. It brings heart palpitations and a depletion of my hope.

Two summers ago looked much the same way. My beautiful view was blurred by tears and anxiety that perpetually seemed to have brought me to my knees asking for mercy. Time did bring clearer skies and a more optimistic forecast…but I spent forty minutes this afternoon at the foot of the Lord begging for Him not to make me endure that storm again.

One of my favourite writers once said that when days like this fall upon us, we are to try and find comfort in that which soothes our soul; a good book, a beloved pet, a warm bath, the embrace of a loved one, a good dose of chocolate…whatever it takes to makes the rumbling, dark clouds a little easier to bear. In the end…if all that fails…we’re to take two Tylenol, go to bed and give her a call in the morning!

The fact that I have the book, the pet, the bath (a rather large one!), the loved one (lots of them), the chocolate AND the Tylenol leaves me feeling a little selfish for being sad at all…but maybe the best remedy to sad days is just that…counting all the ways that could make it better. Fur balls and loving arms are indeed very hard to frown at.

But still, just for today…anyone got any Tylenol?!?!?

Easter in July!

I think that I need Lent again! Or rather, I think that I need Lent to begin with!! As I mentioned back in March, Lent wasn’t an overly successful time for us this past year. Between the move and our trip, we found ourselves being less than disciplined and “reflection” was one of the last things that we ended up having time for. Though the summer months are usually fairly hectic for us, all things considering…so far, it’s actually proving to be a time of a bit more consistency than the past six months. So, I figure that perhaps God wouldn’t mind if I jumped on the Lenten band wagon a bit late this year. Better late than never, right?!?!

My beautiful cousin, Dawn, is getting married this coming fall and for the past few months, we’ve been passing emails back and forth about the time leading up to her wedding. Having been there myself three years ago, it’s still rather fresh in my memory what the summer was like filled with anticipation. A good friend of mine had mentioned to me to try and use that time to reflect a bit as I entered this new and very exciting phase of my life. It was great advice and I really made a conscious effort to soak up everything I could before the big day. I took the liberty of passing on the same advice to Dawn because before she knows it, the wedding will be here and life will never be the same!

That being said though, I don’t think that weddings are necessary in order to “allot” time for reflection. The season of Lent is all about re-evaluating our life and our commitments…counting our blessings and filling ourselves with gratitude. It’s about trying to observe the bigger picture and realizing that, as children of God, we are expected to hold ourselves (and our lives) to a higher standard. This too, doesn’t need to happen only at Easter.

A lot of amazing changes have happened to us this year and I think that this summer, I would like some solitary time to push the pause button! Things are quieting down at work for the first time in nine months and now that life is settling a bit, I feel it’s time to take a little breather from it all. I would like to recommit myself to a couple of things and spend some time being a bit more disciplined than I have been as of late. At the very least, in order to purge myself of all the decadent food I’ve been eating!

So, from now until the weekend of Dawn’s wedding (I can’t wait!), I am going to set aside two lunch hours a week to spend on my own however I please. This is just one of many goals to follow this summer that will help to re-establish my sense of balance and continue to anchor me as I move ahead with the rest of the year. Once I’ve figured out the rest of my goals, I’ll let you know. I have a tendency to be a bit ambitious with my motivation…so I need to think this through properly so that I don’t fall flat on my face before I’ve even crossed the start line!!!! I do know though that one of them will be to cut back on my Starbucks consumption (sad but true…it’s necessary to test our limits sometimes!)…I’m anticipating that their shares will plummet significantly as a result!!

In the meantime though, wish me luck! I’ll likely need your encouraging words when I find myself, peppermint mocha in hand, slowly moving against the grain of righteousness!!! Father Joe would be so proud!

Happy Birthday Canada!
We love you!!

Another One Bites the Dust...

I simply can’t believe that it’s July tomorrow! How did this happen? How did I blink my eyes only to find that half of the year has gone by already? It’s a bit scary when that happens, isn’t it?!?!

I can remember being really little and having the summers off from school. That two months seemed like an eternity and by the end, I couldn’t wait to get back to school to see my friends. I never thought it could happen but, when you’re young…two months is a long time! Long enough even (wait for it…) to get bored!

It’s striking me a bit more this year because I will be turning thirty this July. THIRTY! And I haven’t yet decided how I feel about that. Better yet, I haven’t yet figured out how three decades went by so fast. I will officially be an adult soon and looking back, it seems like just yesterday, I was coming home from summer camp or starting high school. We complain often throughout our lives about the lack of consistency and the lack of solid foundations to rely on…and yet, time is always there…ticking away at the very same pace that is was when we were first born. Time is the constant in our life while we discover that we’re actually the ones that have stepped out of pace.

It’s the age old tale of wishing your life away. When I was young I couldn’t wait to be older and when I was older, I couldn’t wait to “get out” of it (really, adolescence was just eight years of trying to avoid embarrassment!) and then as I got a little bit older again, I started to long for the days of being young; free of obligation and the knowledge that comes with understanding.

For the first time though, I feel like my feelings have caught up with my age. Yes, there is a slight tinge of panic that is coming with this new decade but, I’m also pleased with the idea of leaving my twenties. My twenties were the best of times and the worst of times. My twenties shaped me in a way that no other time in my life has…but I’m ready to say goodbye. I’m ready to face the maturity that comes with the thirties. As far as I’m concerned, our twenties are a little bit like the Bermuda Triangle of adulthood…neither here nor there…just a dark hole in the middle somewhere that unfortunately, some people never find their way out of. I’m hoping that the thirties will provide a certain sophistication that can’t be found in keg parties and university apartments!!

I’m taken aback sometimes by how quickly my twenties seemed to have passed me by. Granted, there were moments when the agony felt like it would never end but, all in all, I’m just hoping that this pattern of rapid fire birthdays doesn’t continue! There’s got to be a pause button somewhere and a bed of roses to smell along the way!

Otherwise, that means that forty is just around the corner and I definitely know that I’m not quite ready for that one just yet!

Adieu...

Our good friend Julie left today for Montreal. She is about to spend the next year travelling around the world and somehow, with the slightest of time passing us by, we realize that our world is a little bit lonelier without her.

Julie and I have spent five days a week together for the past year when she came to the Gallery to take over a colleague’s maternity leave. We became fast friends and later that fall, Jamie joined us and the three of us have seldom been apart since.

Watching her drive away with all of her things in the back seat of her car while Jamie and I stood on the curb crying really made me rethink the role that our workplace plays within our lives. Most of my very closest friends are people that I have worked with and in a world of being told to “leave your luggage at home”, I have found an entire family worth of friendships through my work. Some of my nearest and dearest are those that I spend almost every day with. We fight like family, we love like family and in the end, they become very much like family. We’ve endured deaths in the family, new additions to each other’s family, marriage, divorce and everything in between. It makes me recognize just how little salary really matters to me when making my career moves.

There has been more than one opportunity for me to leave this place but I just can’t do it. I simply can’t bear the thought of not seeing some of these faces every day and being a part of each other’s day to day lives. I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t always the case and that there have been many growing pains throughout my career but these challenges have resulted in remarkable friendships that I wouldn’t change for anything. While we are slowing finding ourselves in various places around the world (parting is such sweet sorrow), I now have this collection of incredible people in my life that are above and beyond anything I could have hoped for in colleagues.

We laugh, we cry and damn it all…we can stuff press kits like nobody’s business!

We miss you already Julie!

I Wonder...

...when and if I get to call myself a writer?!?!

Ground Me If You Can...

I read the most disturbing article this past weekend in the National Post.

Allow me to summarize if you haven’t already read it for yourselves; a twelve year old girl from Québec got into a dispute with her parents which resulted in her father grounding her from going on her year end school trip. This young girl then decides to find herself a lawyer, take the issue to court and believe it or not…the judge actually ruled in her favour which, in turn, allowed her to go on her trip.

This blows my mind and rips apart my confidence in our justice system.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this whole thing upsets me and more so, there simply isn’t a list long enough to accommodate all the questions I have regarding this complete misuse of anyone’s tax dollars. If I had to sum it up though, I would want to know one thing…how was this allowed to happen? How was a judge actually permitted to listen to such a ridiculous waste of time and how did this actually manage to find its way into the court system? Something is terribly wrong here.

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to grow up to be a judge. Even now, I believe that I have somehow gained an over developed sense of justice and fairness…even much to my own demise at times. I always remember a high school teacher once telling me that “fair” does not mean giving everyone the same thing…it means giving everyone what they need. I found this statement very thought provoking as I’ve grown up and watched fairness unravel in various ways around me and in turn, I’ve never seen justice the same way again. The big challenge I had though with becoming a judge was that I never wanted to become a lawyer. I never wanted to have to work for someone that I didn’t truly believe to be genuine. How do you defend someone that you know is guilty or how do you prosecute something that you do believe warrants compassion? I know that the profession of upholding the law is not quite that black and white but my feelings towards justice are so strong that I never found myself able to pursue it in a way that wouldn’t turn my life upside down.

The law, for all of its flaws, is there to prevent anarchy and to determine what the rest of us cannot. But this system is also a very intricate web of common sense that should (easier said than done perhaps) know its limits. This system is not in place so that teenagers can overrule what they consider to be their parent’s harsh discipline. The fact that this case was even permitted to be heard really disappoints me.

How does a twelve year old even go about making this happen? Are lawyers so eager to have their voices heard that they will defend such extremes? This sort of case creates a mockery out of something that should be upheld with the utmost respect in a country that has done a great deal of work to keep the lines of justice very clear.

How can people’s time, effort and money be put into such ridiculous issues? I believe that the judge mentioned that the child’s parent’s divorce played a role in his ruling which, as far as I’m concerned, seems completely irrelevant (especially given that the parent who grounded her was her legal guardian). Does this now mean that children of divorced parents are suddenly entitled to third party intervention while parents that have remained married are still permitted to call the shots? Does it really require the resources of the justice system to figure these things out now?

We complain time and time again about how our young people are all turning down the wrong paths. They are getting pregnant younger, there is more violence in our schools, they are less concerned with their health and they are becoming independent in ways that calls for some very serious measures to be taken, and yet, as I write this, a twelve year old is celebrating victory over her parent’s authority…for a three day school trip.

I should have become a judge and if I had…you better believe that I would have sent this kid to the middle of the Congo so she could see how her “rites of passage” would have treated there. Perhaps then she would stop feeling sorry for herself long enough to let our justice system do what it was actually created to do.

Oh, and one more thing…that judge should be fired! Clearly, he was grounded one too many times when he was young!

Holy Water...

The clouds have parted and I’m feeling so much better today! Thank goodness for that because yesterday was feeling rather toxic. Quite a few people suggested to me that perhaps it’s been all of the rain we’ve received lately that has been contributing to my doom and gloom. While I wasn’t really in the mood to argue with them about it…I know they’re wrong! I actually love the rain and cool, wet days bring me great opportunities for reflection and solitude, which never fails to bring a sense of balance to my life. I know that a lot of people suffer from seasonal mood changes but, it was a cold, rainy, autumn day that changed my life and I’ve never experienced a rainy day the same way ever again.

I don’t know if I’ve ever told any of you this story before but, the year that I graduated university was the beginning of a very difficult time for me. I graduated in the spring of 2001 and really had no idea what I was going to do with my life from here on in. It was the first time that I wouldn’t be in school since I was five years old and the thought of not having my goals outlined for me in a curriculum was overwhelming to say the least. I had also just had my heart broken in the worst way and endured days in which I wondered if it would just stop beating all together. I slept for four months that summer. I honestly spend countless hours in bed and the time that wasn’t spent in bed was spent walking in a haze of semi-consciousness drifting between work and home.

Later that summer, when I eventually “woke up”, the world seemed very big and scary, and I hardly even recognized my self in the mirror. While I really had no idea what to do next, I knew that I had to do something. So, in the grand tradition that is me, I took the most extreme measure I could think of; I changed everything about my life (even though I had no idea what I wanted my life to be). I moved to another province, changed jobs, changed friends and found myself becoming someone that hardly resembled the person that I had ever hoped to become. As I dated a string of completely unsuitable men and spent time with completely superficial friends, I found myself immersed in the very distraction that I thought I needed to turn things around. But that’s all they really were…distractions.

One thing that always struck me as strange was that, for the very emotional person that I am, I really hadn’t cried very much over the course of those eighteen months. I walked about (or slept) in a cloud of very apathetic indifference to my circumstances. While my emotions had apparently shut down though, something else had started to happen; Twenty years of worry, anxiety and perfectionism were starting to manifest themselves in extremely unfamiliar ways. In fact, they started to manifest themselves as amplified versions of what already existed. Not only would I worry now…but I would physically make myself ill with worry. Not only was I anxious now…but I would throw myself into complete panic attacks. Not only did I still remain a perfectionist…but now I would even get out of bed at all hours of the night to complete things that I hadn’t finished during the day because the very thought of them would leave me lying awake at night. But I still didn’t cry. That is…until a wet, cold, autumn day in 2002…

It was just after work and I was meeting a friend in another part of town about an hour and a half later. I was desperately trying to figure out what I could fit into that small window of time that I hadn’t managed to fit in earlier but, every time I started heading in one direction (bank or grocery shopping?), I would panic and think of something else that I thought was more important. This hysteria continued for about fifteen minutes while I walked back and forth on the same block trying to decide what had to be done first…until a cab drove by through a big puddle and soaked me from head to toe! I stood there, on the sidewalk in downtown Ottawa during rush hour and had nothing left to do but cry. I put my bags down next to me and simply stood there in the pouring rain with years worth of tears streaming down my face. I don’t remember anyone around me and I don’t know how long I stood there but, I know that eventually, I picked up my bags and headed to the first place I could find where I could sit down. Sure enough, on the next block over, was a quiet little Starbucks with only a few people sitting in it. I went in, put down my stuff, ordered a drink (for the first time!) and just sat looking out the window at the world going by. My clothes were soaked through, my hair was dripping wet and I didn’t even know what time it was…but I had finally stopped. I didn’t do anything but stare out the window and cry. Finally, I cried. That’s the great thing about the rain…no one has to know that it’s really you crying and not the heavens.

I did eventually meet my friend and I never mentioned a word about what had just happened! Even I hadn’t really come down from it yet but I was certain that something had changed in that moment and things would thankfully never be the same again. A little while later, I read a quote by British travel writer, Freya Stark, that said “There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different than the things we do.” These words startled me so much as it suddenly occurred to me that for most of my life, I didn’t really know what I believed. I knew what others wanted me to believe and I knew what the world thought I should believe…but I didn’t know what I truly believed as a unique individual walking through this life. It’s a frightening realization to come to but a necessary one nonetheless. That evening, the rain had finally eroded a hole through the solid shell I had created to protect me from reality and at long last, I could breathe again. Chipping away at the remaining pieces was often sharp and painful, and my soul ached from being compressed for so long but, the end result finally set me free.

Don’t get me wrong, by no means were things “easy” after this but things were different. Slowly (and with many more tears), I took the time to discover and learn what it is that I truly believe and, in turn, how to live my life accordingly. Even now, there are days when I struggle not to get pulled in countless directions on the whim of other people’s expectations but they are fewer and farther between than they’ve ever been before. And anytime it rains, I stop and remember…

I’ve come to believe a lot of things over the course of the past six years. The very fundamentals that make up who I am are anchored in these things I believe and truthfully, I still confuse my own beliefs with those that I’ve been embedded with in my early years from time to time. During my more vulnerable days, I even find myself wondering if I even have the strength to stand alone on the pillars of my own beliefs. For all its simplicity, living a truly authentic life isn’t always as easy as it sounds, at least not for me. On my good days though (which are now the rule and not the exception), I find great comfort in knowing that my roots are solid for perhaps the first time in my life. Buried deep within me, I believe in health, love, balance, growth, fulfillment, and no matter what my day is looking like at the time…I always believe that the rain, heaven’s tears, washes away more than we’ll ever know.

I’m not very happy today. I just woke up feeling so unable to the make the best of this rainy, cold day. We’ve been busy for so long and the concept of feeling rested is lost on me right now. I went to check Heidi’s blog this morning and was pleased to see two new posts on her site. She hasn’t posted anything since the birth of her son (understandably so) and now, four months later, tiny little baby in hand, she still manages to blow me away with her writing and insight on life. When I read Heidi’s words, I am always in awe of her understanding of what it means to be a Child of God. Her faith, trust and pure devotion to the Lord is so beautiful. I do long to be that mature in my faith one day and better yet, I long to be able to write about it one day with even a fraction of the eloquence and clarity that she expresses her commitment.

I haven’t had much ability to keep perspective these days. I’ve been swept up in one daily mood or another and even as my head hits the pillow at the end of the night, my depleted self falls asleep before I can even wish our good Lord goodnight. I’ve always been one to make a very conscious effort to count my blessings all the time, every day, in order to remind myself of the Glory that comes with even the most tumultuous of days. I try. I try very hard and some days it comes to me easier than others. As I sat in my bathtub last night in a mad attempt to sooth my soul, I asked God if He would mind speaking to me for a little while. I need advice and don’t feel the energy to read between the lines or search for the burning bush. I’m still waiting to hear back from Him!

I’ve been reading the Book of Joshua lately and can’t help but admire Joshua’s determination and stamina. Page after page seems to describe a never-ending stream of battles that he must tackle and have faith that it will turn out as the Lord intended (that is, of course, if I’m understanding the Old Testament correctly…which is certainly hit or miss!). He must take the commands that were given to Moses, that have now been passed on to him and conquer a legacy worth of promises and commitments. I wonder if Joshua ever felt discouragement or frustration at following such a path only to be faced with armies worth of men ready to fight back. Did he ever want to take the easy road? Did he ever just want to throw his hands up and throw righteousness to the winds? I think that I would feel a lot better if someone told me that he did, at least once.

I’m almost embarrassed by my self-centeredness as I read about Joshua or even as I read about Heidi. Joshua was taking the commands of God on his shoulders and Heidi is putting the needs of a brand new life in front of her own (and still managing to blog!). Meanwhile, there’s me…feeling sorry for myself as though it’s me against the world and forgetting that to be a Child of God means that my life isn’t about me to begin with; It’s about being the hands, eyes and heart of God for others. It’s about helping Joshua fight the battle and helping Heidi raise another Child of God.

I still wouldn’t mind receiving a word or two from the Big Guy though! Surrendering is a little bit easier with some words of encouragement. It’s a long way down from the nest with these little wings of mine.

Do you ever have one of those days when you wake up and you just know that something is different? Yes, the sun still rose just the same and yes, your eyes still opened like they always do…but something is different; the world seems better and brighter than it was the day before?

That happened to me this weekend. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something, unbeknownst to me, had happened that I could feel in my bones. Steve and I were driving along the 417 on Saturday afternoon and I felt like everything looked different. A miracle had happened that I was simply waiting to hear about.

Sure enough, come Monday morning, I got a phone call from my good friend to tell me that the world had indeed changed on Saturday morning when their little man finally came into the world. Safely and healthy, their son was born.

I wish that I could express the relief that I have over his arrival. It hasn’t been an easy journey for this little one and even less so for his parents. His entry into the world is the result of great faith, patience and love for a little boy that nobody had yet met. His entry into the world was God’s hand at work in the most beautiful of ways.

I can’t wait to watch him to grow up and I can’t wait to watch my dear friends grow as parents (they are going to be INCREDIBLE parents!). I think it’s a rare gift to be able to watch people you love go through this process from the very beginning and Steve and I have been very blessed to share in this with them from very early on. So I can assure that, while Marie and Craig’s world will forever be bigger, brighter and a little more sleep deprived, our world too was made so much more wonderful by their tiny little creation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the newest addition to one of my most favourite families…

~ Tobin James Pierre Beckett ~
June 14th, 2008

When my husband and I first met, we spent a lot of time dreaming about all of the things that we wanted to do together in the future. The trips we wanted to take, the things we wanted to see, the people we wanted to meet…the world was our oyster and we were the pearls. One of the things on our list was that we both wanted to learn how to surf. Neither one of us had ever lived in a coastal city before hence the culture of surfing was never something that either of us were exposed to. With that fantasy tucked away in our back pockets, we decided that our honeymoon was as good a time as any to check surfing off our list of dreams to live.

So, we got married, packed our bags and headed for the Hawaiian Islands, home to some of the most famous surfing beaches in the world. As you can imagine, one of the first things we did after arriving in Hawaii was to find ourselves a surf instructor. Sure enough, we stumbled upon this guy who must have been about two hundred years old (or at least resembled a two hundred year old hand bag!) and had been surfing long before he was even walking. With a slight nudge in the ribs to wake him up, we had found the guy that was going to help us ride the waves!

I’ll be the first to admit that I was quite confident in my abilities as a surfer. So much so in fact that I was positive that once I had started, not only were my feet going to be forever glued to a surf board but, I was also sure that MTV was going to be hunting me down to play in the next Blue Crush movie! Believe me…I had a plan and that plan included a tanned, chiseled, bikini wearing version of the self I currently was!

Of course, every plan has a few holes in it and my surfing plan simply didn’t account for the fact that surfing is an incredibly humbling sport!!! From the moment that we hit the water we understood our first challenge; that fitness in one sport doesn’t necessarily translate into another sport!! Obviously, being fit makes any sport a bit easier but, just because I could stand in running shoes or stand in skates, did not mean that I could stand on a fiberglass board in the middle of the ocean!

Steve, on the other hand, could do so. Apparently, being able to stand on a fiberglass board on frozen water is quite similar to standing on a fiberglass board on unfrozen water! There is the slight issue of movement but, more or less, knowing how to snowboarding definitely puts the odds in your favour. So while my brand new husband proceeded to show the Hawaiians what a snowboarding kid from the Great White North could really do, I began to learn the fine art of balance for what seemed like the first time in my life.


As I come down from a rather junky week of feeling overwhelmed and under nourished (emotionally that is), I caught myself thinking about this story over and over again because I’m finding that, much to my surprise, balance in surfing is really not that different than balance in life. Lose your balance, and you’re in over your head in ocean deep water…keep your balance, and the shore is never more than a wave away.

Let’s stop for a moment and consider what it is that keeps us upright? What is it that helps us to maintain our balance? As just about any athlete knows, stability and balance comes from having a strong core. Your core centers you and enables everything else to function as you need it to. The giant muscles that make up your core holds you steady and keeps you grounded. Without it, you find yourself relying on stability that just isn’t there. You are relying on pillars of limbs to hold you in place and in turn, doesn’t allow for much flexibility because one quick movement…and you’ll likely find yourself stumbling and grasping to anything that can help keep you in place. Let’s be honest, life, like our bodies, is full of unexpected turns and sudden, abrupt stops. Life requires the same muscle strengthening as our bodies do to keep us stable. Our values and morals make up the very core of who we are and with a strong understanding of them, we can continue to stand strong in the face of any wave. Without them, nothing else will hold up when the tides turn. The ocean may be strong…but we can be even stronger.

I think it’s worth mentioning though that even in the water with your surfboard floating in front of you…all is not lost. Our cores take time to develop and the balance often comes when we aren’t even looking. In the meantime though, while you’re learning to stand upright and figuring out where your balance actually is, you might find yourself catching a glimpse of the shore and ocean around you…and remembering that you’re in Hawaii…on your honeymoon…with the most handsome man you’ve ever met. You wake up to brunch under the palms trees and watch the sun go down to champagne and the sand between your toes. Life is good where the waves roll in and yes, it’s true, I wouldn’t want to spend forever on a surfboard without my balance but damn, if I’m going to have to stumble once or twice…there is no better place than this beach, this ocean and this life…to do it in.

Have you ever felt like you’ve fallen off the bandwagon of life sometimes??

I spent yesterday at home because the night before I pulled a muscle in my neck and felt it go all the way down to the bottom of my spine. Not good! The worst part is that I kind of knew it was coming. For a few weeks now, I’ve felt the slight tweaks when I would turn my head a certain way and quickly realized that my body was rebelling against me.

I’ve been pushing myself pretty hard for the last little while. Actually, I’d say that all of 2008 so far has been one endurance race after another. I try so hard to balance everything; to juggle all the balls and balance all the plates. I try so hard to play as hard as I work and to rest as much as I exercise. I try so hard in fact, that when a ball gets dropped and my head turns the wrong way, the disappointment of having failed to manage it all ends up surpassing the pain in the neck (no pun intended!) of an injury I got as a result. As I sit here writing this, I feel depleted, defeated and as though my entire body is put together wrong.

I’m starting to notice that many of my girlfriends and I are being challenged with the same thing right now; the desire to manage our lives and all that it encompasses without losing ourselves in the midst of the chaos. It sounds like such a typical “woman” thing to say but, I think that there’s something to be said for women trying to find their place in the world (or anyone else for that matter). I can’t even tell you how long I’ve been trying to figure out how I can play my various roles without letting the most important of them all slip between my fingers. I most definitely know that the questions are more important than the answers and I even pride myself on taking the time to ask the questions but, is it too much to ask for even a little bit of an answer from time to time?!?!

I think that as the years go on, women become very intricate hybrids of themselves. They play the role of Mothers, Daughters, Wives, Colleagues, Sisters, Philanthropists, Role Models, Chef…you name it! But with that, it becomes that much harder to play the role of “themselves” and I fear that my poor weary soul is producing physical manifestations of the one role I haven’t been doing much of lately.

Many years ago, I was talking with a priest about my completely irrational fear of cancer. He ended up looking at me in the wise way that priests often do and telling me that he thought I was so convinced I had cancer because I was looking for a reason to give myself a break. When you’re sick, he said, you’re only expected to take care of yourself…something that you seldom do. While I still don’t know if I agree with this statement or not, I did find it incredibly insightful. I thought about it quite a bit at the time but, as the years passed by, the irrational fear continued and the wisdom faded. It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon, during my crippled day at home, that I was reminded of this compelling thought.

While I’m not a huge fan of Oprah anymore (she lost me after the whole attack on James Frey), I still like to watch some of her interviews and yesterday was a rerun of an interview she did with two people that were dying of cancer (great…just what an overly anxious person with an almost obsessive fear of cancer needs!). The one woman who had been living with cancer felt that she was actually healthier now than before she got cancer. Though I imagine that she likely wouldn’t have chosen to have cancer if she had to do it all again, she found that cancer had altered her life and her priorities in such a transformative way. When Oprah asked why she thought this transformation occurred, she responded by saying that “we all, in some way, wait for that great permission to live.” Obviously, this sounded all too familiar to me and immediately caught my attention. When the gentleman with pancreatic cancer was asked if he had any regrets, he simply stated that his only regret was that he hadn’t “figured it all out” sooner.

Gosh, this made me sad. Despite how inspiring these two people were, all I could think about was how I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be the person that had to get cancer before I “figured it all out” and opened my eyes. Really, what has to happen before we decide that it’s okay to take some time to stretch at the end of the day? Or what has to happen before we decide to shut down the computer and pick up that book we’ve been dying to read? Or what has to happen before we give ourselves permission to come home? There really has to be an easier answer to all of this than terminal illness. Even as I blog through the eyes of a sore neck, I just know that all of us can do it; that we can find that fine balance between being ourselves and being Wonder Woman. But in the vintage fashion that is me…I just don’t have the answer! I never do.

Questions I can do. Answers…not so much!
But I’m determined to remain hopeful.

Any day now…any day.

Michael Jackson meets Vanilla Ice meets Bollywood!
"Bloody Brilliant!"

Britain really does have talent!!

I went for a walk by myself at lunch today. I haven’t done that in a really long time. I used to commit myself to at least two lunch hours a week in order to get away a bit and decompress but when you have so many great friends nearby, it’s very hard to resist the temptation to spend time with them any chance you get.

I did manage to escape on my own today though so, I went and grabbed a cold drink and slowly roamed the streets of my daytime stomping grounds. While enjoying the warm summer air, I quickly found myself thinking back to the Sex & the City Movie that some of the girls and I had seen last night. Without giving anything away, the movie basically revolves around the topic of marriage and the various “places” that people can be within it. As the only married girl among us, I’m quite sure that I went away from the movie with a different appreciation and understanding of it then my single friends did but nonetheless, the truthful reality of topic was a life size reminder of just how big a decision marriage really is!

This past weekend, Steve and I went home to celebrate my in-laws 40th wedding anniversary. Forty years! Isn’t that incredible? In this day and age, that’s a very rare accomplishment to witness and I can only imagine the many different things that they’ve seen and done together as a couple. I’m sure that there must have been times when it wasn’t always easy and times when a lifetime together seemed easier said than done. I wonder this myself sometimes even as I reach the tail end of my third year of marriage; will there be enough love, enough patience, enough desire to make it work? While there are no guarantees in any relationships…I truly believe that, yes, there will be enough of everything we need.

A friend once asked me how I knew wanted to marry Steve and when I stopped to really think about it, I realized that my relationship with Steve was the first time I truly understood that there was a difference between loving someone and committing to someone. Many people love each other without really committing to each other and many people commit to each other without really loving each other but, there is a significant difference between the two. It’s very true that the love that exist throughout a lifetime together will endure different phases; the love that you share when you first get married will likely be very different than the love that you share forty years later. The real test is whether or not you can commit to those changes. Can you commit to sticking it out when that love transforms? Can you commit when there’s a chance that it won’t even exist anymore? Can you commit to remembering that there’s a reason why you fell in love in the first place? That was how I knew I wanted to marry Steve…because no matter what, I was committed to sticking it out with him…regardless of the changes that our love could endure and with the understanding that it most likely would have to.

As I walked down Sussex Drive glimpsing at all of the beautiful designer dresses in the window, I had to chuckle at the brilliance of this movie. We are drawn to these four New York women for their Manolo Blahniks and string of cute men but, really…there is an entire method to their madness that I was barely even aware of until their shining moment on the big screen; there is also a very significant difference between a wedding and a marriage! The most beautiful wedding dress in the world won’t keep you together if you can’t commit to each other in sweatpants. Not even the Manhattan stylings of Carrie Bradshaw can pull that one off!

So here I am, just when I thought these girls couldn’t get any better…they go ahead and give even us non-single girls a reason to try and follow in their footsteps. The real challenge though is to try and do so with lovely two inch heeled footsteps to make the journey a bit prettier! I think I’m up for it and I even have the perfect black stilettos with which to do so!

Fabulous!

Ten things I love about you...

1.) I love your eyes. They are endearing and calming and always manage to say all the things you can’t seem to find the words for.

2.) I love the way you always find the good in people…even people who have been mean to you.

3.) I love how every morning, when our alarm goes off, you roll over and put your arm around me. It’s always the best part of my day.

4.) I love how I’m the only person who gets to see how silly you really are!

5.) I love your faith. It’s so pure and honest and embraces the very essence of what faith should be.

6.) I love how amazing you look in ripped jeans and a t-shirt.

7.) I love how much you truly believe I will be a writer one day. Most days you even believe in me enough for both of us.

8.) I love how incredibly patient you are with our kitty…especially when he’s being a little brat (which is most of the time)!

9.) I love how tanned your arms get in the summer!

10.) I love that I can be stuck on a plane with you for fifteen hours and still not get tired of you (even though you bug me about playing Tetris too much!)!

Happy Birthday to my incredible husband! The day that you were born made me the luckiest girl in the world!

Me me me me me me me...

1.) Given Name:
-- Genevieve Victoria (Genevieve is gaelic for White Wave and Victoria was my grandmother’s name)

2.) Childhood Nickname:
-- Gen with a "G", Genygirl, YaYa (don't ask!!!)

3.) Home:
-- Our new house in Ottawa. It was love at first sight!!!

4.) Height:
-- Five foot eight (with the majority of that being legs!)

5.) Eyes:
-- Someone once told me that they are the mirror of the soul. In that
case, mine have a hazel tinge to them!!

6.) Hair colour and style:
-- Dark, thick and often falls victim to people’s fetishes!

7.) Anything that you’re especially self-conscious of?
-- My smile! In grade ten a guy made a comment about my smile and I’ve been very self-conscious of it ever since.

8.) Favorite fictional character:
-- Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex & the City” and Richard Parker from “The Life of Pi” (both of which have rather “feline” qualities!!!)

9.) What do you remember most about this year?
-- April 4th, 2008; Waking up to watch the sunrise over the Sydney Opera House on our first morning in Australia.

10.) What do you think about Ouija boards?
-- People search for answers in the most random of places--this is no
exception (but I’m thinking that it’s probably more interesting to converse with the living instead of the dead!!!)

11.) Favorite T.V. show:
-- Sex & the City (I’m a Charlotte!)

12.) What's on your mouse pad?
-- A mouse! (is that a trick question?!?)

13.) Do you believe in yourself?
--That’s really a matter of timing in my world! Anyone who has ever experienced a truly bad hair day should understand!!!!!

14.) What are you most determined to accomplish:
-- I’m going to finish and publish my book one day. It may not be good and there may not be another soul who ever reads it…but I am determined to make a contribution to the literary world.

15.) Favorite game:
--Monopoly--best played at the cottage!

16.) What would be your list of “Top 5 makeout songs”
-- (in no particular order!) 1. I’ll Keep Your Memory Vague by Finger Eleven 2. Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins 3. Creep by Stone Temple Pilots 4. It’s Been a While by Staind 5. The Red by Chevelle 6. With or Without You by U2 7. Save Yourself by Sense Field 8. Destiny by Zero 7 9.Witness by Sarah McLachlan 10. Fine Again by Seether…I could probably go on for quite a while here, so we’ll just call it quits with my top ten songs!! Anyone else got any good ones?

17.) Favorite drink:
-- H2O and Starbucks’ Peppermint Mochas

18.) Favorite smell:
-- Steve!

19.) Favorite sound:
-- Music. Any music. I need music like I need oxygen. And I love the sound of my shoes hitting the pavement when I’m running (usually because it means that I’m still moving!!!).

20.) What's the worst feeling in the world?
-- Feeling lonely (a broken heart is a pretty close second though).

21.) What's the best feeling in the world?
-- Being in love and feeling inspired.

22.) Favorite thing to do on the weekend?
-- Take my time.

23.) Favorite band:
-- David Usher, Our Lady Peace, Three Doors Down, Coldplay, Linkin Park, Finger Eleven…and the musical stylings of my husband when he decides that breakfast just can’t be made in silence!!!

24.) Where do you see yourself in ten years?
-- Having learned a lot more about myself.

25.) What's the first thing you thought of when you woke up this
morning?
-- “Seriously…how long can a cat really purr for?!?!”

26.) Boxers, briefs, bikinis, thongs or other?
-- Hmmm...that would be for me to know...and maybe a few others!!

27.) Do you get motion sickness?
-- Depends on the night before!!

28.) The nicest thing anyone's ever done for me was...
-- Missed me.

29.) Thunderstorms--cool or scary?
-- I used to think that they were incredibly romantic however, in my old age, I have come to not like them so much anymore! I mean really…what’s so romantic about getting struck down by lightning anyway?!?!

30.) Name one thing that you’re really good at.
-- Eating chocolate fondue!!! And rumour has it that I’m a fairly good writer too!

31.) What is your zodiac sign?
-- Cancer (the only zodiac lucky enough to be named after a terminal illness!)

32.) What do you wear to bed?
-- A smile!!

33.) What’s playing on your iPod:
-- What isn’t playing on my iPod?!?!

34.) What never fails to cheer you up?
-- Being with Steve…Starbucks with the girls…buying a new book…chocolate pudding…writing…being told how cute I am (!!)…Sunday mornings on the run!

35.) If you could have a tattoo, what and where would it be?
-- It took me eighteen years to get my ears pierced! A tattoo seems like a long way away!!

36.) Three most influencial books:
-- In the Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

37.) What's your favorite quote?
-- “Hope has two beautiful daughters; anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to change them.” - St. Augustine of Hippo
-- “There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different than the things we do.” - Freya Stark

38.) Have you ever been in love?
-- Absolutely!

39.) What's on the walls in your bedroom?
-- An awesome green paint…one of our wedding pictures and a beautiful housewarming gift from Craig and Marie.

40.) Is the glass half empty or half full?
-- If the glass were filled with the finest Chilean red wine…then would it really matter?

41.) Pick a song that best describes you or that you can relate to:
-- “Wonderwall” by Oasis, “St. Lawrence River” by David Usher and “Numb” by Linkin Park

42.) What's your favorite movie?
--Contact, Playing By Heart, High Fidelity

43.) What is your biggest pet peeve?
-- Weak hand shakes, automated voice messaging and wisdom teeth!

44.) What’s under you bed?
-- A fur ball named Tugger!

45.) When you first look at a guy/girl, you notice...
-- Whether or not it’s Steve!!

46.) You'd most like to be remembered as...
-- A great wife, daughter, friend and writer…

47.) If you could do anything to the person you hated most, what would it be?
-- Have them love me like crazy!

48.) Your dream guy/girl would...
-- …is not in my dreams!

49.) What's the single thing you would want if you were a stranded on a desert island?
-- Umm…a boat!!! (and perhaps the complete series of “Lost” just to keep things interesting!!!)

50.) What could you never live without?
-- Love, hope, faith, charity and my flattening iron!

51.) What would you prefer to live without?
-- The U.S. government!!

52.) What do you hate most when arguing with someone?
-- I hate it when someone attacks my character instead of my actions.

53.) What is your addiction of choice?
-- The York Street Spa, Starbucks, strawberry season and Gap commercials!

54.) What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
-- A second chance.

55.) What’s the one thing you know to be true?
-- “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” –Cor. 13:4

56.) What’s the most frustrating thing ever?
-- Hearing fireworks but not being able to see them…

57.) When the going gets tough…?
-- The tough gets reminded that I’m a marathon runner…and after 42.2 kilometres…everything else is easy!!!

58.) What’s more important…that the spirit runs quick or that the spirit runs deep?
-- As a runner, what matters most to me is that the spirit runs!

59.) What does the world really need more of?
--runners!

60.) What is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned?
-- Over the past few years, through different situations, I’ve learned just how much of our lives are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us. However, more importantly, I also learned that those who do love us more than make up for those who don’t.